Trump attacked the NFL in a tweet, saying the league should lose tax breaks because of the player protests during the national anthem.

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"Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!" he tweeted.

But the businessman has much more history with the sport.

Back in the 1980s, Trump became owner of the New Jersey Generals, one of the teams in the upstart USFL, which was trying to become a rival to the NFL.

The USFL, which eventually failed, had some success playing games during the spring. But Trump and some of the owners pushed to move its schedule to the fall so it could go head-to-head with the NFL. Trump also pushed for it to file an antitrust suit against the NFL, arguing it was illegally restricting competition.

The USFL won the suit, but it was awarded all of $3 in damages. It soon went out of business.

Trump continued to pick fights with the NFL.

In 2013, Trump attacked NFL rule changes aimed at making the game safer for players, calling them "the beginning of the end" for the NFL.

"The NFL has just barred ball carriers from using helmet as contact. What is happening to the sport?" he wrote.

Trump also tried to buy one of the league's teams, the Buffalo Bills, in 2014, but lost out to a local businessman.

Trump has been complaining for weeks about the NFL players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem, which some players have done in order to protest treatment of African Americans by police.

His complaints only prompted more players, and some owners, to join the protest. On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence left a game he was attending in Indianapolis due to the protests.

On Tuesday morning, Trump called for the NFL to be stripped of tax breaks.

Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!

The NFL does benefit from tax breaks. Teams often receive breaks on property taxes, or they get to use tax-free bonds to build new stadiums. That tax status on the bonds allows them to pay lower interest rates.

They also get direct help from taxpayers in the construction of stadiums. Most of that help is from local and state governments.

The NFL had benefited from its unlikely status as a not-for-profit organization, allowing it to collect billions in revenue and pass the money along to individual teams. But the league in 2015 announced it would give up that status voluntarily. And that was one of the smaller tax breaks it received.

In terms of federal taxes, the biggest tax breaks the NFL benefits from allows corporate customers that spend billions on luxury boxes and other premium seats, as well as on sponsorship deals and advertising on games, to deduct those expenses when calculating their profits and tax bills.

It remains to be seen whether Trump or Republicans are interested in making it tougher for corporate America to deduct those kinds of expenses as part of tax reform.